Castle Hill

High in the Canterbury back country, where the road from Christchurch climbs towards Arthur's Pass, a grassy basin is scattered with hundreds of grey limestone boulders, some the size of houses. Seen from the highway they look like the broken walls and towers of a ruined fortress, which is exactly what struck the first European settlers, who named the place Castle Hill. To Ngāi Tahu, the iwi of much of the South Island, it is Kura Tāwhiti, usually translated as "treasure from a distant land", a name linked to the kūmara once grown in the area, and the rocks are a place of cultural importance to them.

The stone was laid down on the floor of a shallow sea some 30 to 40 million years ago, when much of what is now New Zealand lay underwater. Later uplift raised the limestone into the mountains, and rain, frost and wind have since carved it into rounded towers, fins and overhangs. The result sits at around 700 metres, framed by the Torlesse and Craigieburn ranges, with tussock grassland running between the rocks. The same limestone was quarried for the front of ChristChurch Cathedral in Christchurch.

The outcrops lie on high-country station land and inside the Kura Tāwhiti Conservation Area, and over the past decades they have become one of the best-known bouldering areas in New Zealand, their rough, pocketed stone drawing climbers from around the world. Neighbouring Flock Hill station, with a similar field of boulders, served as the backdrop for the climactic battle in the 2005 film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. A popular story holds that the Dalai Lama, on a visit to New Zealand in 2002, called Castle Hill a spiritual centre of the universe, and the phrase has followed the place ever since. Early runholders included John Enys, a naturalist and friend of the novelist Samuel Butler.

Getting there

Castle Hill lies beside State Highway 73, the Great Alpine Highway, about 95 km north-west of Christchurch by road; the small settlement of Castle Hill Village is a few kilometres further along. The nearest village with services is Springfield, roughly 20 km to the south-east, which is also a stop on the TranzAlpine train between Christchurch and Greymouth. Christchurch International Airport (CHC) is about 72 km away in a straight line.